The Peninsula Hong Kong - Rolls-Royce Fleet (Night) (Photo/Courtesy of The Peninsula Hotels)
"Although we are one of the oldest hotel companies in the world, we don't feel old. We wanted to do something fun and show the heritage of the countries where we're based."
Indelibly associated with its fleet of trademark green Rolls-Royces, Hong Kong's highly venerated The Peninsula Hotels group has been breaking with tradition of late – by offering guests rides in everything from a bespoke tuk-tuk to its very first Tesla. The man responsible for the change of gear is a genial Londoner, Martin Oxley, who has been in charge of The Peninsula's car fleet for more than 20 years.
In the fast-moving and competitive hotel business, The Peninsula, with its 15 Rolls-Royces, still stands alone as the "grand old lady" of Hong Kong hotels. But the group has steadily expanded into new markets and its car fleet is reflecting the changing times – all while injecting an element of fun.
Oxley's office in the quiet elegance of The Peninsula is a world (and a lifetime) away from his humble beginnings as an apprentice mechanic with Rolls-Royce in the 1970s, when he quickly decided that spending his life "covered in oil" underneath cars was not for him.
In his subsequent 22-year career with the world's most prestigious carmaker, Oxley created a unit that specialised in finding the slightest pre-delivery defects, developing an eye for detail that made him the ideal choice to manage The Peninsula's car fleet when he joined the company in 1995.
He works closely with group chairman Michael Kadoorie, who Oxley says has shown an uncanny knack over the years for identifying the small details that can make a big difference. Oxley likes to tell the story of a visit they made to the Rolls-Royce factory, when Kadoorie asked if they could sit in a car in the pitch dark. "He said he wanted to read a newspaper and had spotted that the map light switch wasn't illuminated. I thought, 'He doesn't miss a trick!'"
